After years of swearing he would never marry, it really looked as though the world's favorite heartthrob George Clooney was going to opt for the bachelor lifestyle. That is, until he fell for the charms of international human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, now Clooney. This pretty much makes her the most envied woman in the world by default. But George isn't the only thing that Amal Clooney's got going on that makes us well jel. The Oxford-educated Amal is also working a high flying legal career, and a rainbow of designer looks to rival SJP. But there are a whole bunch of reasons testifying for Amal as a seriously enviable modern lawyer come celebrity. George definitely chose wisely when he picked Amal from the legions of amorous Clooney fanatics out there. Besides her totally on fleek fash (which was never more so than at the couple's Venetian wedding, pics below), Amal is a mega high flying (like stratosphere high) international and human rights lawyer. She brings justice to disempowered people across the world with her incisive sense of justice and articulate arguments. Take a leaf out of Amal's leger next time you have a set-to with the boyf and you'll be calling the shots. We're also green with envy at her insanely fit bod and super chic lifestyle, which sees her working in London's trendy Clerkenwell and flitting off for red carpet walk-ons and weekend getaways with the endlessly attractive Mr Clooney. Here's what makes us super jel of Mrs Clooney, as though George weren't enough...
15 Her on fleek fashion
There are blogs and entire websites dedicated to Amal's fashion as well as her legal victories. As a high flying international human rights lawyer, she has totally nailed women's work attire and we're all looking to her to help us nail it too. With a playful style that is smart and professional without trading in her femininity in a bid to be taken seriously, Amal is owning it in the style stakes. Some of our favorite looks include this rule-breaking black-brown bodycon combo, accessorized with a zinging yellow purse, and the way she wears her sharp work suits to accentuate rather than mask her femininity. Unlike some of the fashion world's biggest names, who often resort to black, her style is a protean mirage of shades, shapes, and labels. She's regularly spotted working adventurous designer looks with impressive (and enviable) flair. But she doesn't let her fashion sense get in the way of business, once countering a journalist who was pestering her about which designer gown she would be wearing in court by saying "Ede & Ravenscroft", the tailors who make court robes.
14 Her insane bod
Where she finds the time to be so in shape we don't know. Maybe, like Lady Gaga, she was 'born this way', maybe finding time to maintain her toned physique is another of her many gifts. It helps that she's blessed with epic legs and has a taste for designer threads and Jimmy Choos. But seriously? How does she do it? This is one of our biggest issues with the perfectly pulchritudinous Amal Clooney, because we're still having trouble working out when we're going to work out. Maybe it's carrying all those weighty legal files around and marching through law firms while quipping ferociously like the cast of Suits. It's a mystery how she achieves such bodily perfection. Even after some pretty stalkerish Googling, it seems that the most likely story is keeping up with her high-pressure career and life in the spotlight as George's Mrs. Pictured in her Giambattista Valli wedding dress though, she strikes a balance, with subtle curves.
13 she's super educated
Amal Clooney graduated with a Bachelor of Law degree from St. Hugh's College in Oxford, England and a Master of Laws from the NYU School of Law. We're super impressed slash jealous of her impressive academic background and legal training at some of the world's most prestigious law schools. Hearing her speak, it's pretty clear that she knows her stuff, and her powers of articulation are potentially helping bring justice to thousands of people around the world whose human rights have been infringed upon. That's pretty impressive too. Amal is proving that women can combine having a pretty face with school smarts and succeed in the world, which is very cool. We like that she clearly invests some of her enviable lawyer's salary in fantastic fashion that we totally love checking out and stashing on Pinterest as style inspo. Amal Clooney totally fascinates us because she works on the world's most weighty and high profile current affairs at the same time as exuding Hollywood glamour. We don't know which makes us more jel.
12 She's the real Miranda from 'SATC'
After graduating, Amal worked for several years at the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, living the Miranda Hobbes Sex and the City dream. With her impressive legal clout, Amal pretty much embodies everything we loved about Miranda. You can imagine that Amal would bring similarly witty repartee to the ladies' lunch table. In fact, we'd quite like to recruit her into our squad. Especially because we know we can count on her to advise us in any legal difficulties we might encounter in the course of being fabulous. After her stint working it like everyone's favorite sitcom lawyer, Amal spent some time at the International Court in The Hague, the Prosecutor Office at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Since 2010, she has worked at London law firm Doughty Street Chambers, located in cool Clerkenwell of course. Well, jel.
11 Her work is really meaningful
Would you have thought back in 2013 that the words 'Mrs Clooney specializes in International Law, Human Rights and criminal law' would be a real thing? But amazingly, they are. Amal Clooney has helped combat human rights atrocities across the world, advocating for fairness and accountability. She's helped to prosecute perpetrators of violence, make corrupt governments accountable and support freedom of speech. And while she's been out winning cases, Amal has also proved that making a difference is possible. She stands for the values that make us proud to live in countries where freedom and fairness are upheld. At the same time as massively envying her impactful career and meaningful work, we have to admit that we're also inspired by her work for humanitarian causes. While we'd really like to be in her shoes (SOMUCH), we're not sure whether to let the green-eyed monster rage or just go full fangirl for this human rights champ.
10 Her clients
Addressing world leaders, briefing the UN Council and walking the red carpet are all in a day's work for Amal. Among her high-profile clientele are Julian Assange, the co-founder of Wikileaks, Yulia Tymoshenko and former prime minister of the Ukraine. She is also a consultant for governments and the United Nations. An enviable list of high powered clients vouches for Amal Clooney's legal abilities, and while some have panned her as a celebrity lawyer, no one can argue with the pivotal nature of her work. Wikileaks alone was a phenomenon that swept the United States and the world, sparking widespread controversy and catapulting the Australian former journalist into both fame and asylum. As a specialist in international law, Amal's work takes her across the world while her human rights work introduces her to some of its most and least powerful people. We're pretty jealous of Amal's undeniably fascinating and influential career.
9 She's trilingual
Not only is she hyper educated, toned and fashion-forward, Mrs Clooney happens to speak French and conversational Arabic fluently, on top of her English mother tongue. Working in international law, this linguistic fluency is almost a prerequisite, but it's still super impressive, and it looks like it didn't fail to impress the former confirmed bachelor, Monsieur Clooney. Mrs Clooney's ability to converse in Arabic has no doubt aided her in connecting with the Syrian and Iraqi refugees she has recently been focused on representing. At the same time, her British accent is discernable in interviews, in which she discusses the fortunes of these displaced people in level, measured tones. Her French came in handy when in 2015 she was a signatory for an open letter to the British and French governments asking them to humanely manage demolish the largest refugee camp in Calais and displace thousands once again. The letter was signed by the who's-who of the British entertainment industry, including Helena Bonham-Carter, Colin Firth, and Stephen Fry.
8 She's self-made
We wonder whether any of Amal's three younger siblings ever feel a teensy bit jealous of their super-sister. In the eighties, the Alamuddin family escaped the Lebanese civil war and sought refuge in London. So Amal has been in very similar shoes to the Syrian and Iraqi refugees who she is currently representing before the United Nations. Amal's mother, who Mrs Clooney says she always looked up to, works as a foreign correspondent for the newspaper Al Hayat, while her father taught economics at the American University of Beirut. As a second generation immigrant to Great Britain, Amal had to earn her success, which she has built admirably from the ground up through a combination of aptitude and hard work. We're impressed at her resolve and evident passion for the truth, which may well have been inherited from her journalist mother and resulted from the family's turbulent past. The silver lining in this potential cloud is that it places Amal in the ideal position to bring justice for today's refugees who have suffered abuses at the hands of terrorists like ISIS.
7 THIS dress
Amal wore this exquisite Alexander McQueen gown at her wedding to George Clooney. The wedding took place at the City Hall in Venice, one of Italy's most romantic and ethereal cities and this dress is perfectly in keeping with the setting. The vibrant red suits Amal's feisty legal public image perfectly, while also representing for her British upbringing. The satiny swirl of fabric could be printed with roses, poppies or fire, we're not sure, but this is definitely one of the best ever outfits in Amal's seemingly endless stream of immaculate, on fleek looks. Paired with a deep red lipstick, this dress shows that Amal has serious style, and we seriously covet her closet. We love that she's not afraid to rock a daring look and has the style savvy to pull them off too. As ever, the newly named Mrs Clooney wore this scorcher of a gown with the smoldering confidence and assurance that we're once again, pretty jel of.
6 She's super successful
Through Amal Clooney's work, the ex-President of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed has been granted asylum in the United Kingdom after being unfairly imprisoned during a political coup in his own country in 2015. Amnesty International described his sentence by an ill-qualified court as a "travesty of justice." In January of 2015, Amal began working to gain international recognition for what has been called a genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenian people in Switzerland in 2005. She represented Armenia on behalf of Doughty Street Chambers. In early 2016 Clooney represented the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova at the European Court of Human Rights. Amal fought for the release of Ismayilova, whose investigative work had resulted in her imprisonment. Following the trial, Ismayilova was released from prison and had her sentence reduced to a suspended three-and-a-half year term. Most recently, Amal is defending the human rights of a group of Yazidis living in Iraq and Syria, who suffered violence at the hands of ISIS forces in the region. It's hard not to feel a smidgen envious of Mrs Clooney, who is out saving the world while we sometimes struggle to avoid spilling food on ourselves or locking ourselves out of the house.
5 She's the ultimate modern woman
Combining beauty, passion, and power, Amal is a modern female icon showing that women can be feminine and successful without undermining men. After all, when you get George Clooney, you've gotta be doing something right. Working it at Cannes, Amal doesn't look out of place amongst the A-list elite of the entertainment industry. But as well as the glam and the fairytale man, she has a really high powered career of her own. Integrating femininity with power, Amal proves that real men won't be intimidated by women who live up to their potential and speak out about the causes that they're passionate about. While we want her wardrobe, we also listen to her thoughts on issues that challenge our world leaders. This is one seriously impressive and totally dynamic modern woman. We'd be jealous if we weren't so inspired by how Amal is paving the way for equally eloquent and elegant female leaders of the future.
4 She's hella brave
Amal is going head to head with the world's most prominent and powerful terrorist group, ISIS, seeking to bring justice for their crimes. Shockingly, she was also unafraid of causing a stir and potentially losing support within the United Nations by criticizing their inaction in the face of crimes against Yazidi women in Iraq and Syria. Addressing the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Mrs Clooney said she is "ashamed" of the UN's reticence to enforce accountability for these crimes. Despite receiving death threats from the terrorist group, she has persevered with her conviction that human rights are being impeached. Waging war not with weapons but with words and laws, Amal has been hailed as a leader by the victims of these attacks. She said “I am advocating for the United Nations Security Council to do more to prosecute [ISIS]...I am ashamed as a human being that we ignore [victims'] cries for help."
3 She champions mistreated women
During her keynote speech at this year's aforementioned Women's Conference in Houston, Texas, Amal Clooney discussed women’s rights across the world. She touched upon the well-known, but the tough truth that in many places the conditions women face are far worse than the awkward President Trump "p***y grabbing" incident we all remember so recently. Amal spoke in detail about her 23-year-old Yazidi client and now friend Nadia Murad, who has become a political refugee in Germany, after her family was killed and she was enslaved by ISIS forces. Following Murad's escape, she has stood up to her former captors by becoming a women’s rights activist and speaking out against the Islamic State. Praised for her own involvement in taking up the case, Amal Clooney was quick to point out the greater bravery of her client Nadia, who received a nomination for the Nobel peace prize in recognition of her humanitarian efforts. We have massive R-E-S-P-E-C-T for these ladies and envy their courage as they take a stand for thousands of trafficked Yazidi women like Nadia.
2 She doesn't age
She's almost 40 but continues to look like a twenty-something. This snap at the Golden Globes shows Amal with gleaming hair and skin and an equally radiant smile. For her years, Amal has also accomplished an incredible amount, taking on numerous weighty and high profile cases. But none of her high profile human rights work seems to have aged her at all. Maybe it's the flush of love and the stability of married life, maybe it's her passion for her career and the recent string of successful cases, but Amal Clooney has never looked better. We don't know how she balances long hours in working on international legal cases of international significance with teaching at the New School in New York, the University of London, the Hague Academy of International Law and Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute. Let alone getting around to walking the red carpet with George and having a life. Mrs Clooney is the kind of woman that makes us set fire to our list of excuses for not going to the gym.
1 She's an inspiring advocate of women
Number one in this list of reasons we're jel of Amal is that in fact, frustratingly, we're with George. We can't even have the satisfaction of hating Amal because her philanthropic work is way too important. We've noticed that her work as a human rights advocate has been on behalf of young women on more than one occasion. Earlier this year she represented the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who was jailed for uncovering evidence of government corruption. In June, Amal announced that she is taking on ISIS, on behalf of thousands of women who are being trafficked in Syria and Iraq as part of a slave market that is still live on Facebook today. Speaking at the Texas Conference for Women in November, Amal said of her role models: “I think growing up my mother was definitely a role model, she was always a working woman and someone who is independent and cared about her career and cared about being independent but also had balance. She never lost her femininity and she believed the balance was important and that is something that stuck with me." Looking glam in a pinstripe Armani dress, Amal concluded her speech with a point we're not about to dispute with the hyper fierce lawyer: “As women, there is a bond that we all share. It’s a bond of shared experience. Experiences that only women go through and struggles that only women face. The worst thing that we can do as women is not stand up for each other. And this is something that we can practice everyday no matter where we are or what we do. Because if we are united, there's no limit to what we can do." Oh all right Amal, you've won us over.
